Michelle Boisseau 

Cremation Center of Kansas City

DeLana Renae Dunkin 

Poet and professor, Michelle Boisseau, 62, Kansas City, died on November 15, 2017. She was born on October 26, 1955 to Fitz Patrick Boisseau and June Tidball Boisseau in Cincinnati, Ohio, the third of their nine children. She received her BA and her MA in English from Ohio University and was awarded her PhD in English from the University of Houston in 1985. She taught at Virginia Intermont College (1985-87) and Morehead State University (1987-1995) before she joined the faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1995, where she was a Professor of English and editor for BkMk Press. While in Kansas City, she was a vital contributor to the Kansas City Literary and Arts community, serving for a time on the the board of the Writer’s Place. Boisseau was a widely renowned poet, editor, and writer. A poet celebrated for the breadth of her subjects, her startling and vibrant language, and the implacable stance of her authorial vision, Boisseau published five full-length collections of poems, along with smaller chapbooks, short stories, essays, works of literary scholarship, and memoir. Her work earned her national attention and garnered many prestigious awards, which included a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2017 and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1989 and 2010). The poems in her 2016 collection, Among the Gorgons, were described as “unashamed, gleeful, outrageous, defiant” and praised for their “fierce intelligence” and “astoundingly precise metaphors. ” A number of her poems can be found on the website at the Poetry Foundation: poetryfoundation. org. Beginning in 1993, she co-authored the best-selling textbook Writing Poems, the most popular text of its kind and used in colleges and universities across the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. She was preceded in death by her parents, her brothers Fitz Patrick III and Jonathan, and her sister Madeline Boisseau Vincent. Boisseau is survived by the love of her life, her partner in the delights of language, her husband of 29 years, Thomas Stroik, Professor Emeritus of English at UMKC, and their daughter Anna Boisseau of Washington, D. C. Other survivors include step-daughter Katherine Stroik of Madison, Wisconsin; three sisters Nancy (James) Achberger, Milford, Ohio; Barbara Boisseau (Dominik Chilomer), Newport, Rhode Island; and Denise (Russell) Hoelting, Austin, Texas; two brothers Robert (Tracey) Boisseau, Pleasant Plain, Ohio and Charles Boisseau, Gainesville, Florida, as well as over twenty brothers- and sisters-in-law, several score of nieces and nephews, great-nieces and nephews, and many dearly loved friends, colleagues, fellow writers, and former students. A memorial service will be held at 2:00 pm on November 28 at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the ACLU--https://action. aclu. org/secure/make-gift-aclu-someones-memory.

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Michelle Boisseau Obituary | Cremation Center of Kansas City